It's Hard For Me To Say I'm Sorry
I would like to issue an apology to Darth John Smedley at SOE, Julio Torres at Lucasarts, Tiggs the former community lead at SWG, Brad McQuaid formerly Sigil and Vanguard and every other developer or community rep who's life I have made a nightmare with my "WTH are you playing at?" moments I have had in my 11 years of online gaming.
I have given guys and gals like those above one heck of a rough ride over the years; never foul mouthed or abusive but always pressuring and putting those awkward questions across on behalf of the various communityies I have been a part of, almost always doing so via every means possible email, official forums, fansite forums and gaming community forums to stir up as much community unrest and support over the issue as possible.
Heck I was almost Pikeman Correspondent back in the days of PreCU SWG with a 15000+ post count, countless player tutorial’s and contributions to the Wiki but SOE decided I didn’t quite tick the “I will do what I’m told” box. There was a far greater chance that I would light the torches and hand the villagers pitch forks and lead the community to burn down the gates of the castle that the monster that whatever bug or profession imbalance was our grievance at that time resided in.
Now I’m getting to see this from the other side and believe me its fun with a capital F. Having been a part of the FS community for a long period of time before turning to the dark side and becoming a staff member, I find myself reading a post and nodding my head and thinking “Yeah guys stick it to them, tell them what you want!” then my brain switches on and I realise “Hold on one moment! I’m not on that team anymore.”
I have to think about things from both sides of the fence now. Posting is a completely different kettle of fish now. Many times over the last 2 weeks I have found myself rewriting a simple post 4 or 5 times because my brain is still in “I’m a member of the community” mode rather than the “Wait I cant say that because I should be in a member of staff mode” mode.
Moderating you just don’t realise how much Plectrum does in the background that you never quite see. In 1 hour alone whilst sat in my hotel this week I read 100 or so new posts, had to delete over 10 spam posts, warn 2 users for swearing and warn another 4 for excessive use of smileys. Hold on Smogboy, excessive use of smiley’s are you serious this is meant to be a fun community, yes I am deadly serious :) Plectrum hates his double posting, even I have a warning to my name for that offence, I hate people using smileys to the extreme.
Fine by all means have 10 or so in a 100 word post but don’t have a 2 word post followed by 40 smiley’s or there will be a message in your inbox.
Anyway it’s been great fun so far and long may the fun continue, and again to those I've made a days work hell for in the past my apologies.
